For all its fine lines and whispery color by newcomer Mariniello, this appreciation of airplanes suffers from a crippling split personality. The couplets that ferry it along are extremely simple: “White clouds, blue sky— / Up above . . . Eagles fly.” Each of the 13 planes introduced here, from the Sopwith Camel to the F-18 Hornet, get this kind of roly-poly verse—“Hawks soar . . . Tigers roar . . . Cougars howl . . . Panthers prowl”—only to have engineering drawings of a plane by the same name as the animal or insect often take a whole page right alongside the paintings of the planes slicing through the air. A full half of the book will be of little interest, if not active distaste, by whatever age group is reading it: Older kids will resent the infantile poetry, while younger kids will be flummoxed by the detailed drawings and by the statistics at the end (Hawk 75A, wingspan of 37 feet 4 inches, and so on). Any way you cut it, too little or too much sends this effort into a tailspin for all but the most rabid, very young plane fanatic. (Picture book. 4-7)
Pub Date: May 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-8050-4952-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2001
Categories: CHILDREN'S TRANSPORTATION
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Listeners will quickly take up the percussive chorus—“Dump it in, smash it down, drive around the Trashy town! Is the trash truck full yet? NO”—as they follow burly Mr. Gilly, the garbage collector, on his rounds from park to pizza parlor and beyond.
Flinging cans and baskets around with ease, Mr. Gilly dances happily through streetscapes depicted with loud colors and large, blocky shapes; after a climactic visit to the dump, he roars home for a sudsy bath.
Part of a spate of books intent on bringing the garbage collectors in children’s lives a little closer, this almost matches Eve Merriam’s Bam Bam Bam (1995), also illustrated by Yaccarino, for sheer verbal and visual volume. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: April 30, 1999
ISBN: 0-06-027139-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1999
Categories: CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S TRANSPORTATION
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With a tiger at the wheel, the big purple bus rolls all over town, picking up a menagerie of passengers from sheep (“BAAAH, BAAAH, BAAAH”) to vipers—get it? — (“HISS, HISS, HISS”) to skunks (“SSSS, SSSS, SSSS”) before disgorging its dismayed human riders (“HELP! HELP! HELP!”) at an outdoor party. Though wild creatures waddle, tramp, or slither aboard by troops there's always room for more in Karas’s (Raising Sweetness, 1999, etc.) gleeful paint-and-paper collage scenes. The scene on the bus is bound to provoke a great reaction and reading (or honking) along is inevitable. It's a frolicsome spin on the familiar play rhyme, and a surefire alternative or follow-up to Maryann Kovalski's Wheels on the Bus (1987) or Paul Zelinsky's classic popup version (1990). Hop onboard. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: April 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-8050-5952-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2000
Categories: CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S TRANSPORTATION
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